Two Tails Up? Furbo 360° Cat Camera, worth it?
Are you a spy, a snoop, a kitty voyeur? I know I am. I love seeing what my cats are up to when I am not around. This is especially important to me when I go out of town for more than an evening. I have great friends that watch my kitty-kids while I am out of town and I trust that they aren’t letting my cats starve no matter what my cats say when I get back, but sometimes you just want to see their furry faces.
I started out having two Eufy indoor security cameras, which I highly recommend. The picture quality is excellent, they send alerts through an app when motion is sensed, and the software allows for customization like setting areas of a view that will trigger alerts. It is supposed to be able to tell if the motion is a person or a pet, but in my experience it seems the camera thinks of “the boys” as hoomans most of the time. That said, they are inexpensive and easy to use. The cameras connect to wifi without a hitch after being stored. I put them away when I am not traveling as I can’t get over the feeling of being “watched” when they are active.
The problem with these cameras is that I have to rely on my cats to be in the room with the camera to be seen. If they aren’t in the room, no kitty snooping! This is where the Furbo shines. I have been using the Furbo whenever I go out of town for a day or more for the past 9 months (seriously slacking on this review), and have found it very enjoyable. If your cats are free fed it may not be as effective unless you find a super yummy treat that they will come running for. In my case both of my cats perk up as soon as they hear the camera on the Furbo turn on. The Furbo will also play a little sound just before throwing treats, and my cats are now conditioned to expect an onslaught of cookies when they hear the tweety-bird sound play.
Having this camera really helps make me feel a little less homesick when traveling for an extended period of time. I know I can turn it on and see my cats up close! The Furbo comes with a couple of other features that are in theory good, but in practice less so. That cute little dangly feather toy, it’s useless. You are supposed to turn the Furbo to “wave” the toy around in the air, but the Furbo turns so slowly it’s pointless. My cats were totally uninterested in the toy, so I just removed it. I can imagine a kitten might play with it but I bet they would bore of it quickly and lose interest. So, nice thought Furbo, but it’s a feathery fail.
Then, there is the ability to talk to your cats. You might like this, your cats might like this, my cats were confused and looked sad when they couldn’t find me in the house. I like that the Furbo alerts me when my cats are meowing, so I can check in on them and see what’s going on (it is usually my friends talking to them lol). I opt to stay silent so my cats don’t think I am in the house and go looking for me. The sound quality is okay, you can get a sample of the TV playing in the background in the video below.
The one problem (yep in the past 9 months, I only found one) with the Furbo? The lid only seals with a friction fit. My cats are not particularly crafty, but they have figured out how to knock the Furbo over spilling all the treats out on to the floor. This not only ruins Iz’s diet, but it renders the camera useless because it is now laying on the floor pointing in who-knows-what direction. The Furbo has two little sticky dots that are meant to hold it to the surface it is sitting on, but if you are like me and prefer to put it away when it’s not in use the sticky dots are not useful. I ended up sticking it to the surface with a 3M Command strip and that seemed to work well enough. I would prefer if the camera had a wider base and a lid that locked on. My old cat Max would have figured out how to open the Furbo without any issues even if I used the built in sticky dots. A locking lid would be enough to keep my cats from eating all the treats even if they did knock it over, it could be put back in place by my friend at the next visit.
That’s as bad as it gets, and it doesn’t deter me from heartily recommending the Furbo. A friend of mine purchased the canine version after playing with the app on my phone. She subscribed to the Pet Nanny service and loves it.
This one gets a solid TWO TAILS UP! I like it, my cats love it. They both get really excited when I pull it out of the drawer. It makes me feel a little less guilty for leaving them behind when traveling.
